Category Archives: Horror Stories

Wife Wanted: No Sex, No Cleaning, No Car Required!

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By Guest Blogger, Nila Ridings 

A 90 year old French man who found himself suddenly widowed has turned to some novel advertising for a new “dame.”  He’s posted a plywood sign in his garden asking for volunteers. I’ve heard of internet dating and mail order brides, but if this works it could turn into an interesting trend.

It wouldn’t work in this country, though, since American Homeowner Associations ban advertising of any kind.

On second thought, maybe this fellow should consider moving to my sister’s HOA in California?  She tells me that every time a woman in the neighborhood passes away the local “casserole ladies” swoop in like buzzards on road kill. The “casserole ladies” obviously have to keep their freezers well-stocked, but no plywood signs would be needed.

Of course, in America putting up a lonely hearts sign would probably get this poor widower fined, liened and foreclosed upon before he had a ghost of a chance of meeting anyone new.

Maybe the French actually do have an easier life than those of us on this side of the pond?

http://tinyurl.com/d73bhwc

(original source)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/roger-marc-grenier-widower-sign-france_n_3141182.html?utm_hp_ref=fifty&ir=Fifty&icid=maing-grid7%7cmain5%7cdl13%7csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D304249

Searching Out Hoarders

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Yes, indeed, certain Homeowners Associations are actually doing unannounced mandatory inspections for hoarding. Among the items not to be hoarded are books! Scary, isn’t it? 

I have to make a confession here. I hoard books. I still own just about every book I ever read. None are piled on the floor, but my shelves are packed.  Somehow, I just thought my grandkids might someday wonder how their old grandpa got the nutty ideas in his head for some of the directions in life he took.

My mother was a wise old bird. She had a ‘secret compartment’ on her shelves that held some books my brothers and I were forbidden from reading. Of course, as soon as I discovered the ‘secret section’ I made a good inventory and went back as often as I dared. So at the age of ten, I started making my way through a number of naughty writers like Ayn Rand, Gore Vidal, D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. I don’t remember many turned down pages, but I do remember that Ape And Essence was kind of titillating,

Among the forbidden books were some by James Madison and Charles Dickens. Ah yes, there was also a book called Fahrenheit 451.

It was about people who hoard such things as books. And the local HOA squad goes out and torches the illegal collections.

In my forty year career as a news reporter, I’ve walked into hundreds, perhaps even thousands of homes. Some were clean. Some were not.  But in all those years I never saw anyone’s book collection that should have been confiscated. 

Hoarding is a problem. But isn’t it the wildest form of arrogance for a private non-profit corporation known as a Homeowners Association to do surprise inspections and make random decisions about what is and isn’t ‘hoarding’?  I don’t like mice. Or termites. But just keep your hands off my books!

 

The Dearth of Common Sense!

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An ancient police axiom says, “Bad police work makes for bad case law.” A parallel in journalism is, “Careless writing makes for bad libel law.”

Somehow, you’d think some semblance of that wisdom would get through to some of the 335,000 Homeowners Associations in our country, especially those who’ve been well-described as “the lawn nazis” or the “condo commandos”. In many such neighborhoods people don’t talk to each other or have folks over for dinner.

Maybe that’s why so many state legislators are beginning to pay attention and talk about enacting laws to tap down the “little hitlers’ who seem to enjoy causing pain and distress among their neighbors.

Parking on the street overnight can bring such fines as $650, or for a fellow in Buckeye, “$1600”! Yes, there’s a madness afoot in this country, but at least one state, Arizona, has passed new parking legislation that says, “You can’t fine somebody for parking on a city-owned street.

Gosh, you’d think some bits of wisdom would be second nature!

But they’re not.

Thus, the law.

http://tinyurl.com/btsmotw

(original source)

http://www.azcentral.com/community/glendale/articles/20130424law-limits-future-hoas-control-parking.html 

 

Kind Of Funny, When The News Media Begin To ‘Get It!’

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Yep, nobody’s guiltier than this long-time reporter. So many times over the past four decades the real import of a story has just  sailed over my stupid fuzzy head.

But it’s fun to be a witness when a reporter suddenly has that head-thunking moment when he or she realizes that they’re actually reporting on a story that has real national significance!

Today’s ‘head-thunker’ is Jodie Fleischer of “Channel 2 Action News” in Forsyth County, Georgia. She’s just discovered that private HOA security guards are embued with the same powers as police officers in making traffic stops inside Homeowners Associations. Now try to understand this: Homeowners Associations are private non-profit corporations which have ZERO government powers, ZERO government enforcement abilities. Yet these sleazy little white-bastion gated communities are acting like they have all the Constitutional Powers customarily reserved for trained police officers. Every trained cop in the country should be mightily offended.

We’ve already had the Trayvon Martin disaster where an untrained ‘HOA security cop’ killed a kid who was walking through the neighborhood. Again, I have no opinion as to whether the fault was Trayvon’s or George Zimmerman’s. But this is like a ticking time bomb in every one of the nation’s carefully coiffed gated communities.

Trial lawyers are broke right now. Their phones have stopped ringing. The recession has eaten deeply into their personal savings. They are birds-of-prey at this moment, floating and circling over the countryside looking for any available carrion in these HOA communities. Every single time a private security guard pulls his lights, siren, badge and ticket writing stunt on a detained motorist, there’s a lawsuit in the making.

Every time a lusty young private HOA security guard takes a sideways glance at a low-cut blouse on the most recently detained motorist, there’s gonna be Hell to pay.

And it ain’t Hell that’s going to be paying the legal bills. It’s each and every member of that private gated Homeowners Association.

Jodie Fleischer, take it from a long-time fellow reporter. You’re hanging onto the threads of a donkey’s tail. This story will kick you into the mud, or into the Big Leagues.

http://tinyurl.com/c3fbb7k

(original source)

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/do-security-guards-issuing-traffic-tickets-overste/nXXbD/ 

 

Wow! Another 5-Star Review!

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You just can’t imagine how much these 5-star reviews on Amazon lead to increased book sales. Thank you so much! It really does help get the word out. I appreciate the support more than you know. And I’ve promised that for every six books I sell, I can ‘bomb’ a legislator of your choice with a book and a handwritten note saying, “Your Constituent, ______   ______, insisted that I send this book to you.” So far, I’ve kept to that promise!

Now, keep a promise to me.  After you read Neighbors At War! don’t put it on the bookshelf. Make someone else in the neighborhood read it. That’s not a profitable thing for an author to say, but at least you know it comes from the heart of someone who wants to make in impact.

Ward Lucas